Statutory Information including Privacy

A summary of our statutory information including our Privacy Policy

Portland Business & Financial Solutions Limited understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used. We respect and value the privacy of all of clients and third parties and will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a way that is consistent with our obligations and your rights under the law.

1. Information about us

Portland Business & Financial Solutions Limited registered in England under company number 03830668.

2. What Does This Notice Cover?

This Privacy Information explains how we use your personal data: how it is collected, how it is held, and how it is processed. It also explains your rights under the law relating to your personal data.

3. What is Personal Data?

Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Regulation 2016/679) (the “GDPR”) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’.

Personal data is, in simpler terms, any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information such as your name and contact details, but it also covers less obvious information such as identification numbers, electronic location data, and other online identifiers.

The personal data that we use is set out in Part 5, below.

4. What Are My Rights?

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we will always work to uphold:

a) The right to be informed about our collection and use of your personal data. This Privacy Notice should tell you everything you need to know, but you can always contact us to find out more or to ask any questions using the details in Part 11.b) The right to access the personal data we hold about you. Part 10 will tell you how to do this.c) The right to have your personal data rectified if any of your personal data held by us is inaccurate or incomplete. Please contact us using the details in Part 11 to find out more.d) The right to be forgotten, i.e. the right to ask us to delete or otherwise dispose of any of your personal data that we have. Please contact us using the details in Part 11 to find out more.e) The right to restrict (i.e. prevent) the processing of your personal data.f) The right to object to us using your personal data for a particular purpose or purposes.g) The right to data portability. This means that, if you have provided personal data to us directly, we are using it with your consent or for the performance of a contract, and that data is processed using automated means, you can ask us for a copy of that personal data to re-use with another service or business in many cases.

For more information about our use of your personal data or exercising your rights as outlined above, please contact us using the details provided in Part 11.

Further information about your rights can also be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s Office or your local Citizens Advice Bureau.

If you have any cause for complaint about our use of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

5. What Personal Data Do You Collect?

We may collect some or all of the following personal data (this may vary according to your relationship with us and is not an exhaustive list)

Name;

Date of birth;

Gender;

Address;

Email address;

Telephone number;

Business name;

Job title;

Profession;

Payment information;

Information about your preferences and interests;

Income and expenditure;

Payroll information;

Identification documents to comply with Money Laundering regulations.

Your personal data is obtained from the following third parties:

Directors of the company where we are dealing with its financial affairs;

Sole traders where we are dealing with its financial affairs;

Accountants and advisors to these individuals.

6. How Do You Use My Personal Data?

Under the GDPR, we must always have a lawful basis for using personal data. This may be because the data is necessary for our performance of a contract with you, because you have consented to our use of your personal data, because the data is necessary under a legal obligation for us to comply with the law or because it is in our or your legitimate business interests to use it. Your personal data may be used for one of the following purposes:

Supplying you with information with regard to financial distress and the options available;

Providing you with advice;

Communicating with you. This may include responding to emails or calls from you;

Carrying out our statutory and contractual obligations as insolvency practitioners.

You will not be sent any unlawful marketing or spam. We will always work to fully protect your rights and comply with our obligations under the GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, and you will always have the opportunity to opt-out where information is sent with the legal basis of consent.

7. How Long Will You Keep My Personal Data?

We will not keep your personal data for any longer than is necessary in light of the reason(s) for which it was first collected. This will be determined by the legal obligations and legitimate reasons to keep the data.

8. How and Where Do You Store or Transfer My Personal Data?

We will only store or transfer your personal data within the European Economic Area (the “EEA”). The EEA consists of all EU member states, plus Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. This means that your personal data will be fully protected under the GDPR or to equivalent standards by law.

9. Do You Share My Personal Data?

We will not share any of your personal data with any third parties for any purposes except where we are obliged to share certain personal data, which might include yours to comply with legal and contractual obligations and for legitimate interest.

10. How Can I Access My Personal Data?

If you want to know what personal data we have about you, you can ask us for details of that personal data and for a copy of it (where any such personal data is held). This is known as a “subject access request”.

All subject access requests should be made in writing and sent to the email or postal addresses shown in Part 11. To make this as easy as possible for you, a Subject Access Request Form is available for you to use. You do not have to use this form, but it is the easiest way to tell us everything we need to know to respond to your request as quickly as possible.

There is not normally any charge for a subject access request. If your request is ‘manifestly unfounded or excessive’ a fee may be charged to cover our administrative costs in responding.

We will respond to your subject access request in no more than one month of receiving it. Normally, we aim to provide a complete response, including a copy of your personal data within that time. In some cases, however, particularly if your request is more complex, more time may be required up to a maximum of three months from the date we receive your request. You will be kept fully informed of our progress.

11. How Do I Contact You?

To contact us about anything to do with your personal data and data protection, including to make a subject access request, please use the following details:

12. Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. This may be necessary, for example, if the law changes, or if we change business in a way that affects personal data protection.

Any changes will be made available on our website.

Cookie Policy

This policy statement tells you how we collect information from you and how we use it. This statement forms part of our web site Terms and Conditions.

The information you provide is used to make your visits to our site easy and enjoyable. Be assured that Portland will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. However, we reserve the right to disclose user information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Portland’s rights or property, other users, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities. We also reserve the right to disclose user information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it.

Portland collects aggregate information about our subscribers and web visitors. This data is used to customise Portland web content to deliver a better experience for our users and will in no way personally identify you.

We do request personal information such as your name, email address, etc when you subscribe to Portland’s newsletters or send us a message from our contact form. We need to collect this information for personalisation and delivery and/or for purposes of editorial content and decisions.

Furthermore, we may use your personal information to send you periodic Portland communications, solicit your feedback on Portland issues, provide you with special Portland offers, or for other Portland purposes and to customize the services we provide to you. If you choose to opt out of receiving any communications from us, please follow our unsubscribe process at the foot of any message we may send you.

The EU Cookie Law

A cookie is a small piece of data sent from web sites you visit – such as ours – and stored in your web browser. The EU Cookie Law states that, with some exceptions, web sites must not now create and set such cookies without your explicit permission first. In the spirit of working towards compliance we would like you to know the following.

Our web publishing software predates the EU Cookie Law and sets 3 cookies in your browser as part of its default behaviour. No information that identifies you personally is collected. The names and functions of these cookies are as follows:

exp_last_visit

This cookie records the date and time of your last visit, which will be today. Although it is set for all visitors it only supports functions for registered users. It will expire automatically in a year.

exp_last_activity

This cookie records the date and time of your last visit to our site prior to today. If this is your first visit, the date and time set will be as per exp_last_visit. It will expire automatically in a year.

exp_tracker

This cookie is more benign than it sounds. It merely records up to the last 5 pages you have visited on our site so that page redirection can be handled where appropriate. It will expire automatically when you quit your browser.

We regret that we cannot prevent these cookies from being set by default without compromising the function of our publishing system. We will ensure that our next publishing system is fully compliant.

In addition, our use of Google Analytics sets the following cookies:

__utma
__utmb
__utmc
__utmz
See Google’s explanation (for a technical audience) of how these are used.

Use of IP address

An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web. Web servers automatically identify your computer by its IP address. We potentially collect IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, to analyse aggregate information, and to audit the use of our site. When visitors request web pages from Portland, our servers log the visitors’ IP addresses.

Links to other sites/ ‘public’ areas

You should be aware that when you are on the Portland web site, you could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. There are links to other sites from Portland web site pages that take you outside our service. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information. The privacy policies of these other sites may significantly differ from those of Portland. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any other sites and cannot guarantee the security of any of your personal information collected there.

Security

Protecting the security of all personally-identifiable information associated with our guests is of the utmost concern to us. We exercise great care in providing secure transmission of your information from your PC to our servers. Once we receive your transmission, we will take reasonable precautions to ensure its security on our systems. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect our users’ personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your personal information.

Privacy policy for minors

Portland does not knowingly collect information from minors. If you are under 18, please do not provide any personal information to us.

Access to your own data

To be provided with a copy of your own personal data that the List Owner holds, and to contest and correct inaccuracies, or request that their personal data be deleted, please contact us and we will respond quickly. To unsubscribe from Portland newsletters, simply use the unsubscribe link provided in each edition. Or alternatively contact us.

Your acceptance of these terms

By using this site, you signify your assent to the Portland Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use this site. The terms of this Privacy Policy may change from time to time without prior notice to you, so please check this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of this site following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

Provision of Services Regulations 2009

The following information is given in accordance with the Provision of Services Regulations 2009.

Quality of Service

If you are not satisfied with any contractual services received, or if you have any suggestions for improvement of our services, please contact the director in charge or Carl Faulds, the board member responsible for quality. We will look carefully and promptly at any issues raised. You may also contact the Insolvency Practitioners Association and/or the Information Commissioner about the way in which we have handled your personal data.

For insolvency appointments, you should contact the appointed insolvency practitioner and/or, if necessary, the Insolvency Complaints Gateway, run by the Insolvency Service.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Our professional indemnity insurer is THB Professional Financial Risks.